Louis Banks-' Godfather of Indian Jazz'

              
 Louis Banks (born 11 February 1941 as Dambar Bahadur Budaprithi in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India) is a Grammy Award nominated.

 film composer, record producer, jazz musician-keyboardist and singer. Proficient in genres like Indipop, modern progressive and contemporary jazz and Indo jazz fusion, he has often been referred to as the Godfather of Indian Jazz.

In 1974, Banks approached R.D.Burman, who was a frequent visitor to the Blue Fox Restaurant and asked Burman to let him join his troupe in Bombay, Burman happily took him in.

In 1988, Banks composed the tunes to the iconic Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, a short film on National integration for Doordarshan, at that time India's sole broadcaster. Due to its popularity, the tune has often been dubbed the unofficial Indian anthem.Banks would go on to provide music to similar patriotic short films like Desh raag and Spread the light of freedom.

He formed a new band called 'Silk' with Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani and Karl Peters.

His 2008 collaboration as co producer, arranger and pianist/keyboards on the album Miles from India, a tribute to the founder of modern jazz Miles Davies was nominated for the Grammy Award's 2008 in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category. In the same category, John McLaughlin's fusion album Floating Pointwas also nominated, Banks was the featured keyboardist on the album.